


Lay Here Breathing

by entirely_too_tall



Series: NurseyDex Week 2017 [6]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bedsharing, M/M, NurseyDex Week, Sharing a Bed, Softly, derek "soft" nurse, the softest soft to ever soft, william "soft" pointdexter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-01 23:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11497143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entirely_too_tall/pseuds/entirely_too_tall
Summary: Dex wakes up slowly, the kind that you get when your dreams slowly blend into the waking world and your senses sharpen one by one. Reluctantly, Dex opens his eyes, and sees that he’s in the bottom bunk. In Nursey’s bed. Again.---In which Dex wakes up in Nursey's bed, and then decides to go back to sleep.





	Lay Here Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6 theme: Soft
> 
> Find the event and themes [here](https://nurseydexweek.tumblr.com/post/162330031741/nurseydex-week-2017-july-16-22).
> 
> I originally wrote this for Day 2 bedsharing, but came up with something else that ended up with the one I put out, so this got moved to Day 6, which fit a lot better anyway.
> 
> Check Please and its characters belong to Ngozi, I am only expanding upon it for our collective non-commercial pleasure.

Dex wakes up slowly, the kind that you get when your dreams slowly blend into the waking world and your senses sharpen one by one. He feels his skin heat up under the blanket, becoming too warm to be covered anymore, but his limbs are still to heavy to move, so he stays under the covers. There is a warmth all along his body, much warmer than usual, much warmer than just a blanket, but Dex hasn’t emerged fully from his dream-fog, and doesn’t pay too much attention to it.

 

His eyelids are two weights that he doesn’t want to lift, so he keeps them closed, but another sense has woken up. He smells something thick and oily. Coconut, he thinks, and wonders if he’s back to dreaming again, but he only ever dreams about the cold, rough Atlantic seas off Maine, not anywhere warm with sunshine and coconut trees. There’s another smell under that, and it smells like _boy_. Not his own, but definitely that male, musky smell that he’s learned to recognize in locker rooms and bedrooms.

 

Reluctantly, Dex opens his eyes, and sees row upon row of wood lining down his vision. It’s the bottom of his top bunk, meaning he’s in the bottom bunk. In _Nursey’s bed_. Again. It’s happening more and more often now, Dex waking up in Nursey’s bed, in Nursey’s arms. He looks down to find that indeed, Nursey has one arm around Dex’s waist, another curled up between their chests. Nursey’s blanket is already kicked down to the end of the bed, his warm body radiant under the sunlight filtering through the curtains. They are both in their boxers, and Dex remembers that they didn’t manage much except to fall into exhausted slumber together last night, too tired after the bitter loss to Yale at home. They’re finding comfort in each other more frequently, now that they’re sharing a room. Sharing a bed.

 

It’s funny, when Dex recalls how he used to flinch away from Nursey’s touch. Nursey is the most tactile person Dex has ever met, after Shitty. It might be an Andover thing. And whereas Shitty has imprinted onto Jack, Nursey must have done the same for Dex, because as soon as they were paired up as D-men, Nursey has never gone a day without laying a hand on Dex. Often it’s just a punch in the arm, at the very least he goes for a fist bump, but sometimes it’s also an arm slung over his shoulder. An encouraging pat on the back. A playful rustle of his hair. A grab on his hand and dragging him to the dance floor. A warm and sweaty body plastered up against his on Nursey Patrol with a nose nuzzling into his neck, and Dex has resigned into becoming the default and only person to be on Nursey Patrol because Nursey wouldn’t let anyone else do it.

 

Dex used to bristle whenever Nursey made contact, unused to such casual touch, having had to fight off his older brother too much of his life. It even led to some quarrels, but Nursey never learnt to hold back long enough, and Dex eventually came to like this newfound tactile affection. He doesn’t want to think too much about how Chowder pointed out that he still doesn’t let anyone else touch him too easily, that he still stiffens when Chowder or even Bitty pulls him in for a hug. Instead, he just focuses on the warm weight across his stomach, the slow rise and fall of the chest pressed next to his, how they match down to their inhale and exhale. 

 

There’s little noise in the room, just their soft breathing, and Dex doesn’t want to disturb this peace. This little moment where he’s just existing with Nursey next to him. It feels perfect in a way he doesn’t recognize, has never felt before, and has no idea where it leads. He doesn’t know the words to describe it, and is perhaps a little scared to pin it down, because writing it down in his journal, saying it aloud to himself in the mirror, will make it real and he will have to confront whatever _this_ is.

 

Nursey would probably know what this is, probably have written poems and stories about it, Dex thinks. He always has the right words, the right turns of phrase that make Dex finally see that maybe a degree in English isn’t a total waste of money and effort. Nursey rattles off weird quotes that exactly hit the mark on how something feels, and sometimes it turns out that the quotes are lines Nursey came up with himself. Maybe Nursey has come up with lines about these moments too, when Nursey wakes up before Dex, and finds his own little peace.

 

Dex doesn’t want to find out yet, though. All he wants is to lay here and breathe together. Nursey is rarely quiet like this. Dex half expected Nursey to also talk in his sleep, given how much he keeps talking and needling at Dex, at times monologuing at and others arguing with him. But Nursey doesn’t talk in his sleep, Dex quickly found out on their first roadie together. He doesn’t even snore, just soft, quiet breathing, laying in the world, relaxed and at peace. Dex found it ironically calming, because awake-Nursey has the opposite effect on Dex, yet asleep-Nursey has become a balm for the Poindexter Power, the constant need to fight and fix and fend. Dex’s family has always been restless sleepers, yet, in the quiet room, in the soft morning light, in the warm arms of his best fried, with the mingling smell of coconut and manhood, with a familiar and comforting warmth, Dex can feel settled enough to close his eyes, and enter sleep for a while more with a peaceful, contented smile.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Find me on [tumblr](http://ohjustletmewriteinpeace.tumblr.com).


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